Do the greenhouse gases affect the oxygen of air?

1. 43

   H P Roychoudhuryposted 14 years ago

   Do the greenhouse gases affect the oxygen of air?

   replyreport
2. 78

   Nick Bposted 14 years ago

   I refer you to http://hubpages.com/hub/Pollution-and-global-warming, wherein I describe how greenhouse gases are rising and in my opinion, at a faster rate than is natural due to the excess waste gases we are pumping into the atmosphere.
   
   These gases are not affecting the oxygen, but the production of it and the ability the Earth has to absorb carbon dioxide and other GHG's.
   
   It was said in one reply that the Earth is a living organism and can regulate itself, but as with any living thing, too much of anything can have an adverse affect. It is the failure of the wealthy industrialists and our demand for comfortable living that is causing the accelerated rise in GHG's this time, not a natural cyclic phenomena.

   replyreport
3. 88

   Doc Snowposted 14 years ago

   Not once they are created.  However, the combustion process involves combining oxygen from the air with carbon to form CO2.  Therefore, every molecule of CO2 means, in theory, one molecule less of O2.  Luckily, CO2 content is only about 387 parts per million, while O2 is about 210,000 ppm, so the oxygen content does not decrease by much.
   
   But this effect can be, and has been, measured.
   
   The major constituents of the atmosphere, nitrogen and oxygen, are transparent to infrared radiation and hence don't act as greenhouse gases.  In addition to CO2, water vapor is the most important GHG.  But water vapor concentrations are highly variable over time, and water vapor isn't found much at high altitudes.  These factors leave CO2 with a lot of "control" over the degree of the greenhouse effect.

   replyreport